Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger

Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger is the compelling account of an American widow's journey through Ireland on the eve of the Great Famine. Her object was to determine the condition of the poor and discover why so many were emigrating to America. Eschewing fancy hotels and fine carriages, she travelled a good deal on foot and rested at common lodging-houses and even in the rudimentary cabins of the very poorest. This provided a unique opportunity to study the lifestyle and character of the ordinary folk at close quarters, and what the pious Mrs. Nicholson observed has left posterity with an invaluable record of the customs and traditions of the Irish peasantry, from faction fights to funeral cries, and a graphic account of the hardships that Ireland's poor had to bear.